Effectiveness of a comic book intervention on mental health literacy among adolescents and youth in Burkina Faso: a randomized controlled trial protocol.

Journal: BMC public health

Volume: 25

Issue: 1

Year of Publication: 2025

Affiliated Institutions:  Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (Campus Charité Mitte), Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany. irene.brandt@charite.de. Nouna Health Research Center (CRSN), Nouna, Burkina Faso. Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Sourô Sanou, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso. TUM School of Medicine and Health, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany. Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (Campus Charité Mitte), Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany. Heidelberg Institute of Global Health, Heidelberg, Germany. Africa Academy for Public Health (AAPH), Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. School of Social Science, Policy, and Evaluation, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA, USA. Heidelberg Institute of Global Health, Heidelberg, Germany. till.baernighausen@uni-heidelberg.de. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (Campus Charité Mitte), Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany. shuyan.liu@charite.de.

Abstract summary 

In Burkina Faso, nearly half of the population is under 15 years old, and one in four adolescents experience depression. This underscores the critical need to enhance mental health literacy among adolescents and youth, empowering them to manage their mental well-being effectively. Comic books offer an engaging approach to health education, yet their effectiveness in addressing mental health remains largely untested. Our study aims to fill this gap by evaluating the effectiveness of comic books in enhancing mental health literacy among adolescents and young adults aged 10-24 years.We will recruit 2,007 participants aged 10-24, stratify them by age, and randomly assign them to three groups (1:1:1): a comic book intervention group (Intervention 1), a text-only flyer group (Intervention 2), and a control group with no intervention. The primary outcome will be mental health literacy and secondary outcomes will include anxiety, depression, and intentions to cope.We hypothesize that the comic book intervention and flyer intervention will prove more effective in improving mental health literacy than the control group. We further hypothesize that for younger adolescents (10-14), the comic book will be more effective at increasing mental health literacy than the flyer. Conversely, we hypothesize that the flyer will be more effective in increasing mental health literacy for older adolescents (15-24). Our study will provide evidence on novel interventions designed to enhance mental health literacy among adolescents and young adults in low-resource settings.This trial has been registered on the German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS), with the registration number DRKS00034242.

Authors & Co-authors:  Brandt Irene I Some Sylvain S Millogo Ourohiré O Sourabié Oumar O Burns Jacob J Shinde Sachin S Haucke Matthias M Sivewright Nathan N Neumann Christine C Bajaria Shraddha S Napon Katian K Dah Clarisse C Taonda Marina M Siegel Jason T JT Sando Mary Mwanyika MM Bärnighausen Till T Sié Ali A Liu Shuyan S

Study Outcome 

Source Link: Visit source

Statistics
Citations :  World Health Organization. Mental health of adolescents. Available from: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/adolescent-mental-health. Accessed 15 Oct 2024.
Authors :  18
Identifiers
Doi : 107
SSN : 1471-2458
Study Population
Male,Female
Mesh Terms
Humans
Other Terms
Depression and anxiety;Health education and communication;Help-seeking;Light-touch intervention;Low-and middle-income countries;Mental disorder knowledge;Mental illness;Non-specialist providers;Stigma;Sub-Saharan Africa
Study Design
Randomized Control Trial
Study Approach
Country of Study
Burkina faso
Publication Country
England